Value Creation Levers: The 6 Ways B2B SaaS Companies Can Grow

While venture-backed businesses chase the coveted triple-triple-double-double-double growth path to $100M ARR, sustainable growth comes in many forms. Whether you're venture-backed or bootstrapped, understanding and strategically implementing different growth levers can accelerate your path to scale.

This post outlines six proven ways B2B SaaS businesses can create value, with actionable steps for each lever. More importantly, it will help you evaluate which levers to pull based on your current stage and resources.

Key Terms

Before diving in, let's align on two critical metrics that will frame our discussion:

• TAM (Total Addressable Market): The theoretical maximum market value if every potential customer bought your solution. Calculate it as: total number of possible customers × ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account)

• SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market): The portion of TAM you can realistically serve given your current go-to-market constraints (product compatibility, geographic presence, etc.)

A Reference Point

To illustrate these concepts, let's use a fictional B2B SaaS company called CutCommander, which provides scheduling and business management software to barbershops. Current profile:

• $25M ARR

• Transactional sales cycle (<30 days)

• $1,500/month ARPA ($18k/year)

• TAM: $180B (10,000,000 barbershops worldwide × $18k/year)

  • 1,200,000 locations in the US

  • 15,000 in Canada

[This is all fake data]

1. New Markets

Expanding into new markets (typically geographic or vertical) unlocks fresh TAM and expands your SAM. This could mean international expansion or adapting your product for adjacent industries. You can start selling internationally with sellers not in the region. There are many examples of US-based companies selling remotely into Europe and vice versa.

Many businesses begin to move upmarket at some point. That is a new market so make sure your buyers (and product) are ready!

Strategic Considerations:

• Gather international market data to identify optimal expansion regions

• Map regulatory requirements and cultural nuances

• Evaluate adjacent verticals against your current ICP

• Calculate potential SAM/TAM expansion for each option

• Prepare GTM teams for new market dynamics

For CutCommander, this could mean remote selling to Canadian barbershops or expanding into hair salons and nail salons, potentially adding a large amount to their TAM.

2. New Buyers

Expanding to other buyers within existing markets could include a few different approaches. Are there additional use cases of your software that could apply to other functions within your customers? Are there additional segments that could be served if you make some adjustments to the product?

Strategic Considerations:

• Map value propositions for each new buyer persona

• Source high-quality account and contact data for new target buyers

• Document and prepare for different objections

• Train sales teams on any value prop changes

CutCommander could expand upmarket to serve multi-location chains or adapt their offering for mobile barbers.

3. New Products

Product expansion creates cross-sell opportunities within your installed base and can increase ASP for new customers. This lever often provides the fastest path to revenue growth given existing customer relationships. You may begin a new land & expand approach.

Strategic Considerations:

• Beware of any changes to the competitive landscape

• Design compensation plans for cross-sell success

• Develop multi-product positioning for different personas

• Plan land & expand motion adjustments

CutCommander could add marketing automation or financial management modules, creating new revenue streams from existing customers.

4. Mergers & Acquisitions

Strategic acquisitions can rapidly unlock new markets, expand product portfolios or add customer bases. While complex, M&A can accelerate growth beyond organic capabilities.

Strategic Considerations:

• Understand the customer overlap with acquisitions

• Align acquisition targets with product roadmap

• Plan post-merger sales organization structure

• Design cross-sell/up-sell strategies for combined customer base

• Develop a pricing strategy with the new offering

Example: CutCommander acquiring Hairloom, Europe's fastest-growing competitor, instantly provides European market access.

5. Increased Productivity

Optimizing your existing sales engine can drive significant growth. A 10% improvement in per-rep productivity could transform $5M in quota carriers into $5.5M producers. Expect more tenured sales teams to produce at higher levels. Retaining your top talent and coaching the existing team to continue to succeed will drive quota attainment up.

Strategic Considerations:

• Are there things preventing your sellers from spending time with prospects?

• Remove process friction points (ex: process or system issues that take up time)

• Improve sales enablement and training

• Focus on conversion rate optimization

• Leverage data for higher-probability targeting

CutCommander could focus hiring in dense urban markets to increase daily prospect meetings and reduce travel time.

6. Pricing & Packaging

Pricing optimization impacts both new sales ASP and installed base ARPA. While complex, getting pricing right can be a fast path to growth.

Strategic Considerations:

• Segment product features into tiered packages (ex: good/better/best)

• Evaluate implementation cost structure (can you add it to the subscription?)

• Review and optimize discounting practices

• Build systematic price increase programs

• Test value-based pricing models

For CutCommander, this could mean creating good/better/best tiers with the highest value, most desired feature at the highest tier only.

Making Strategic Choices

With six growth levers available, prioritization becomes critical. Consider:

1. TAM expansion potential for each lever

2. Resource requirements and implementation complexity

3. Time to revenue impact

4. Current market conditions and competitive landscape

5. Your organization's capabilities and constraints

The most successful growth strategies typically combine multiple levers, sequenced thoughtfully. Focus on expanding TAM while simultaneously improving GTM efficiency to drive both growth rates and net revenue retention (NRR).

Remember: The best growth lever is the one you can execute effectively with your current resources and capabilities. Start with the highest-impact, lowest-complexity options and build from there.